Friday, April 18, 2008

How many times do I have to tell you peeps that the Flu vaccine is utterly worthless? To reiterate: the flu virus mutates constantly. As in, the flu that your buddy gets three months from now is not the same exact flu you suffer with today. Furthermore, the vaccine for this year's flu is made from LAST year's flu virus. Researchers guess what strains will predominate and make the vaccine based on that.

Each year, health officials - making essentially an educated guess - formulate a vaccine against three viruses they think will be circulating. They guess well most of the time, and the vaccine is often between 70 and 90 percent effective.

But this year, two of the three strains were not good matches and the vaccine was only 44 percent effective, according to a study done in Marshfield, Wis.

The only people who benefit from the flu vaccine are the pharmaceutical companies. Now, I do not give a rats rump if they make money on other legitimate products. More power to them. But the flu vaccine is a complete fraud.

What does 44% protection mean? Does that mean that of the viri out there, you'll be covered almost half the time? According to the CDC, about 3-20% of the population gets the flu each year. How much money goes into vaccinating the 97-80% of the people who don't get the flu? In addition, how many people in the hospital were vaccinated, but got sick anyway? Remember 56% of the viri are not covered. So a vaccinated person will likely be vulnerable to the majority of the viruses that cause the flu. Nice. And it is possible that 1.5% to 9% of the population will be the ones covered effectively by getting the vaccine. Is that worth it? Is the expense every, single year, worth it? Is the trouble worth it? Would you have a surgery if it had a 1.5% to 9% effective rate?

Here's the deal: Every couple years, you're going to get the flu. It will make you miserable. It will boost your immune system. And you'll likely be safe for a couple years. The flu sucks. If you're a sick or weak person, it could kill you. But there are risks in life and the flu vaccine doesn't cover enough of them to make it worth it.

Actually, drug companies really don't make much money on vaccines. Sometimes, if they guess wrong about how many people will want one, they lose money. Flu vaccine doesn't last long, and it takes a very long time to make. That's why when there's a sudden run of vaccine, they run out quickly.

In general, the vaccine is only necessary for the very young, very old, the immune compromised, and people who work with them. The whole family got flu vaccine this year, because my kids are 4 and 1, my father has diabetes, and we were visiting my aunt who has myasthenia gravis, and a giant grain tumor she was about to have surgery on.

If I was just a 20 year old guy with no family or any need to take one, I wouldn't. It's not the drug companies that encourage people who don't need them to get them, it's the media who needs a scare to dredge up to get readers. They tend to scare healthy people into using up vaccine so that the people who need it don't get any. It pisses me off.

I also got the vaccine before I Went to Russia, because I didn't want to have to seek medical help there at all. Scary place! I also brought my own supply of Cipro, in case of food poisoning and so forth (which, unfortunately, I ended up needing!)

And drug companies are not evil. They make a product, yes, but it's a win-win for everyone.